More specific meaning of "AMIGA" word

[Tiago]

The meaning of "AMIGA" word

Everyone knows that "Amiga" was the name given to the machine to have a meaning of "friend".
So the choosen word was "Amiga" (spaninsh word).

Well, many people say that amiga is "girlfriend" in english.... well not quite the same....

Amiga in Spanish is equal to Amiga in Portuguese, the language is similar, in this case the same meaning.



In Portuguese and Spanish the many words end in different ways acording if they are femenine or masculine.
Yes most word could be male or female.


In average cases:

words ended with (o) = masculine
words ended with (a) = femiline

if words end with (os) = plural of masculine
words end with (as) = plural of femiline

Many other words end with (r) usually they are verbs.


So, amiga is feminine and in english is a female friend (not girlfriend)
amigo is masculine and in english is a masculine friend (not boyfriend)


- girlfriend or boyfriend could be for "the one i love" could be a special relation, two individuals that like eatch other more then usual, passion.

- friend is just friend, withot passion.

- Friend (female) you can have many (6,7,8...) girlfriend (passion) you have 1 (ok, same guys have more...)


So Amiga should be just friend and not girlfriend, i read in a lot of places the story and usually the transalation talks about "girlfriend" (with passion)




If you want to say the word Amiga as original (Spanish or Portuguese), you sould say:

- with a half-strong voice in the "A" and let the rest of the word be soft:
sont read (A) with (H) like HAmiga, just A (strong) like haaa (scream with no "H")

- the (i) is different from the english, you shoud read more like (e)
the m+i should be more like (me)

- the (ga) should not be read like the (ga) in english word (gate), you read gate like gay-te, try to remove the (y) from gay, to stay (ga)

- try to say "AAA-me-ga"

(sorry my english, it's hard to express myself ...)

hope you get it

This word left me in troble last week....

Last week i was in the train with a friend and i told him in Portuguese "vou comprar um amiga" witch means "i'm going to buy an Amiga" ---(amiga=female friend)--- so imagine what happend.... there was a old lady in front of us who look at me, and said "you what? You gone buy a women?"

[AlexJ]

That's quite interesting. I've always thought from my (basic) Spanish that Amiga was a female friend in general not specifically a girlfriend. Glad to see I was right.

[Tiago]

That's quite interesting. I've always thought from my (basic) Spanish that Amiga was a female friend in general not specifically a girlfriend. Glad to see I was right.

That's it Alexj

[v85rawdeal]

It would tie in quite nicely with the naming protocol used on the chips.

You know: Paula; Agnes; Denise; Elvis...

[Tiago]

It would tie in quite nicely with the naming protocol used on the chips.

You know: Paula; Agnes; Denise; Elvis...

Yes.

And Paula and Alice, are typical Portuguese female names. Paula is also a spanish female name.
Denise and Agnes are not Portuguese and i think not spanish to.

[Teho]

Hm. I allready knew the specific meaning of Amiga, but hadn't realised that it could be confusing translated to english. It's actually strange that english don't have a specific word meaning 'female friend', as most languages in the same family does. Spanish does, as demonstrated. And I can attest to the scandinavian languages having it; 'venninne/vänninne' being female, 'venn/vänn' being male/neutral. And the germans has it too, with their 'freundin' and 'freund'.

Perhaps the english just never realised you could be friends with girls?

[AlexJ]

Hm. I allready knew the specific meaning of Amiga, but hadn't realised that it could be confusing translated to english. It's actually strange that english don't have a specific word meaning 'female friend', as most languages in the same family does. Spanish does, as demonstrated. And I can attest to the scandinavian languages having it; 'venninne/vänninne' being female, 'venn/vänn' being male/neutral. And the germans has it too, with their 'freundin' and 'freund'.

The Celtic languages don't have it. In Welsh for example, it's ffrind whether male or female. I don't think there's an equivalent of the English 'girlfriend' either. Cariad (lover) would be used instead which again would describe either a girlfriend or boyfriend. Even lazier than English really.

[Tiago]

If the objective was find a word for Friend (female) then Amiga is correct

But if the objective was to find a world for girlfriend
the word should be in spanish "Novia" or in Portuguese "Namorada"

[Teho]

If I recall correctly though, since computers was a pretty alienating thing at the time they wanted a name disassociating them from that, and so decided to go with a word meaning friend. And the reason they ended up with Amiga instead of Amigo was simply because Amigo was allready a trademark from someone else, but I don't recall what it was.

[J T]

Amigo is also a bit gay sounding

I knew about Amiga meaning friend that is a girl, but not a 'girlfriend', too. English doesn't really have masculine and feminine forms like the continental languages do. That's because we are truly non-discriminatory and world leading in being comitted to equal rights and are real leaders......

*cough*


OK, it's more that we're lazy